Physics

Physics

Electron breakup? Physics shake-up

A controversial theoretical proposal that challenges more than a century of theory and experiments suggests that loose electrons in liquid helium may break into pieces, dubbed electrinos.

Physics

One-molecule chemistry gets big reaction

Carrying out a widely used chemical reaction on one molecule at a time, researchers demonstrate unprecedented control of molecular behavior and, possibly, the ability to make novel nanotechnology devices and compounds that can't be created with ordinary chemistry.

Physics

Fusion Boost: Promising path to heavy nuclei

By using radioactive nuclei as projectiles in accelerator-based nuclear collisions, scientists may be able to produce more readily than expected many exotic heavy nuclei that are impossible to make today but are crucial for future advances in nuclear physics.

Materials Science

Sopping Up Heavy Metal: Hybrid material removes mercury from water

A hybrid material consisting of a bacterial protein and a temperature-sensitive polymer proves efficient at removing mercury from contaminated water.

Materials Science

Plastic Chips: New materials boost organic electronics

A new class of electrically conducting organic molecules provides researchers with improved materials with which to fabricate plastic electronic devices.

Physics

Hydrogen hoops give superfluid clues

Tiny rings of hydrogen molecules show signs of possible superfluid behavior, suggesting that helium might not be the only superfluid after all.

Physics

Electrons get a crack at the nucleus

As long suspected but never before shown, electrons orbiting an atom can directly excite the atom's nucleus.

Materials Science

Titanium makes move toward mainstream

Inventors of a new process for producing titanium claim that their method can reduce the metal's cost to one-third its current price.

Physics

Most-Wanted Particle Appears, Perhaps

Hints of the Higgs boson—the crucial and last undetected fundamental particle predicted by the central theory of particle physics—have cropped up at a particle collider in Switzerland just as the machine is slated to be dismantled to make room for a more powerful collider.

Physics

Icy telescope spots hot neutrinos

The first sky map from an innovative neutrino telescope indicates that the instrument works properly and is poised to find never-before-seen signals from the universe's most violent events.

Physics

Electric Foam: Scientists uncover basis of material oddball

Specially treated polypropylene foam can mimic the defining behavior and other desirable properties of ceramic piezoelectric materials, which generate electric signals when squeezed.

Physics

Gluing building blocks with geometry

Using blocks with simple shapes, researchers have found ways to construct strong panels with no fasteners securing most of the blocks.